Enjoyed your poems. And your unique word choices enhanced the poems emotional impact and kept me engaged throughout. I’m a poet specializing in Japanese forms: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka and my haiku, a tribute poem to Bashō’s frog with commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my Basho haiku among her top 10 haiku of all time. What an honor. Here’s the Bashō poem and commentary: Bashō’s frog four hundred years of ripples At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum. The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us all that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain. ~~ And my tanka: returning home from a Jackson Pollock exhibition I smear my face with paint and morph into art ~~ -All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida, Al

Poetry - With passion, character and feeling. Appearance - Scruff / poetical / dreamer, lost soul. Speaking Voice - Truly his but very muffled. Conclusion - True Poet!

What a treat to listen to Donald Hall read, guided by the lovely Elizabeth Spires. I found this while thinking of #NationalPoetryMonth this morning. Now I plan to make it part of my morning routine to find poets reading their words online. Thank you for posting this. I, too, am a poet, and also attended the University of MIchigan, where Donald Hall and I never crossed paths, unfortunately.

Thank you this was very interesting!

Don Hall everyone Don Hall *Applause*

Frost also called poetry, "a momentary stay against confusion."

❤️

As if the poetry of Donald Hall needed to be nudged toward clarity by the pedestrian commentary of Elizabeth Spires. Furthermore, I can’t understand Mr. Hall’s willingness to talk about his poetry. His genius only spoke in verse!